Need to extend or add disk space to a Virtual Machine? The wonderful thing about virtual server technology is that disk space can be added super easily. The days of purchasing extra hard drives of any sort online and then installing them in a server are slowly coming to an end. Now disk space can be added, or extended in this example, through virtualization technology.

Hyper-V Manager within Windows Server 2012 (Datacenter Edition) can sometimes produce an odd error when attempting to turn on a typical virtual machine or VM after it has been shut down:

This error might make sense if the user is not logged in as an Administrator, but really what organization gives Windows 2012 Datacenter Hyper-V access to a standard user? In other words, the error indicating “the user has not been granted the requested logon type” makes little sense because the Administrator account normally has full control of everything. On the other hand, there are a variety of logon types that MIGHT not be granted even to an Administrator account within the server world. A quick workaround for the above is: open Services MMC and restart Hyper-V VM Manager [NOTE: this does NOT restart all the other VMs, if any, but only the service itself!]:

The VM that is shut down will turn on automatically once done. Or it can be turned on manually. This depends on how the automatic start up settings of the VM are configured. There is a full ‘fix’ for the ‘logon type’ matter, but this resolution takes under 5 seconds so it works for me, seeming as most VMs are not normally placed in a non running state – why have them around if that is the case?

I want to thank Microsoft from the bottom of my heart for automating and completely cleaning up the mounting of ISO images! ISO’s are the de facto standard for Operating System (or SQL Server, Office, and others) installs these days. From the perspective of bits and bytes, ISOs are efficient, sleek, compressed packages. But in years past, they were sometimes … cumbersome to deal with.

In the virtualized world, it is important to have an ISO ‘mounted’ automatically. What does this mean? It means you click the ISO and within a split second the ISO transforms itself into a standard combination of installation binaries, or files and folders that are needed to perform an installation. The mount appears as just another ‘on-the-fly’ drive created in Explorer. From there you click the .Exe or .Msi and begin.

Back in the ‘old days’, Systems Administrators had to rely on 3rd party freeware or paid software to properly handle ugly ISOs. These did not always work as promised and frequently offered separate challenges. But this is no longer needed. For example: let’s say there is a need to install Windows Server 2012 Standard with Datacenter edition. No, I do not mean do an install while visiting your Datacenter, I mean installing a virtual machine (server) within the virtualized Windows 2012 Datacenter edition, the host. [as an aside, the ISO for Standard Edition and Datacenter Edition for Server 2012 is same].

Once, the OS is paid for and downloaded, then within the Hyper-V Manager, the new virtual machine process can be pointed to the ISO. It is transparently handled behind the scenes. And, mainly for demo purposes, the ISO for the server OS ISO can be double-clicked and mounted as well. Automatically the mount produces the needed “Setup” file. The below can also be done for Windows Deployment Services (WDS). The files below would look different, but WDS needs to have Windows 7 or 8 ISOs, for example, mounted so that the WDS server can pass needed images.

I am not sure about other Exchange Server Email infrastructure administrators, but I find it challenging to come up with reasonable mailbox quotas AND implementing them in a time efficient and coherent manor. The goal is to set maximum mailbox size quotas that work for all involved: I.T. Departments and various employees and respective departments. […]

I normally get what is needed from my Windows phone Outlook, but some searching and sorting type of improvements would not be turned down.Microsoft Acquires Email Startup Acompli to Give Outlook a Mobile Advantage"Microsoft has acquired the mobile email startup Acompli, the tech giant announced today on its website.Terms of the deal were not disclosed, […]

This is not the best news, as I am embarking on some Azure based projects at work. Come on now, all you expert Microsoft Engineers - make it happen (work / fix)! Btw - What about all that redundancy? ;>"Xbox Live Goes Down Again: Second Major Outage This Month [Updated]"http://www.ibtimes.com/xbox-live-goes-down-again-second-major-outage-month-updated-1725918

Hyper-V Manager within Windows Server 2012 (Datacenter Edition) can sometimes produce an odd error when attempting to turn on a typical virtual machine or VM after it has been shut down: This error might make sense if the user is not logged in as an Administrator, but really what organization gives Windows 2012 Datacenter Hyper-V access […]